


Breaking Point

by branewurms



Category: Pandora Hearts
Genre: Angst, Ficlet, Friendship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-06-23
Updated: 2009-06-23
Packaged: 2017-10-03 09:59:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/branewurms/pseuds/branewurms
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It hadn't mattered what he'd had to do, if it could help him save Oz; but he'd thought killing would be so much harder.</p><p>Somewhat Gil->Oz, but no more so than the actual manga.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Breaking Point

**{losing}**

There is more blood in the human body than he would have expected, he thinks, as he falls to the floor.

He trembles. He trembles not because pulling the trigger had been so very hard, or because the sight of blood is so repugnant to him. His hand had lifted like a thing apart from himself, like someone else's limb; as he stared down his target, the hand shook, just a little, and then his finger pulled the trigger.

He trembles not because it had been so hard, but because it had been much too _easy._

There were more after that; the second time was easier still, and by the third time, his hand no longer even shook. He stopped, eventually, even thinking much of it at all.

It hadn't mattered what he'd had to do, if it could help him save Oz; but he'd thought killing would be so much harder.

_There must be something wrong with me,_ he thinks on occasion. _There must be something broken inside._ And he mends his brother's toys, even though he knows that Vincent will only destroy them again. They're the only thing he knows how to fix.

**{finding}**

"Get it out of him."

"And what will you do, hmm? Raven."

Gilbert glares at Break without speaking.

Break laughs. "Ah, that's what I thought; but I'm afraid I can't allow such things," he says, sing-song. "This is a chance to gain B-Rabbit's power for our own use."

"I don't care about your agenda," says Gilbert. "I want it gone. It nearly killed him."

"Patience, patience. You've waited ten years, you can wait a little longer."

_Patience._ Hah. Once he'd realized there was a chain eating into his master's life, he would have killed it right then and there, had there been a body to shoot. He would like to say it was simply the desire to protect; and certainly, the panic that now clenches his chest stems from the knowledge of what will happen if the connection isn't broken. But what he had felt in that moment - what he still feels now - isn't only fear: it is rage.

Protecting the master was supposed to have been _his_ job.

**{mending}**

But the chain wears the face of a young girl. She is obnoxious, violent, loud-mouthed and spoiled. She eats his food and sleeps under his roof without a word of thanks, breaks his possessions without a word of apology. She insults him and calls him names, hands down orders as though he were obligated to obey them. She is utterly infuriating, infuriating to a degree beyond what even Break is capable of.

And he realizes, too late, that he is infuriated at a girl. A girl, not a chain.

He finds himself pushing her back and stepping in front of her as they face down Grim. Protecting her, as though a chain needed protecting. It's the job he was given, he reasons, to protect her along with Oz; but the reasoning rings hollow. He'd done it so naturally, without even thinking.

(So young, so small, so _human._)

And then, in the dark of an empty theater, she declares them all, in her tyrannical way, to be "comrades." Somehow, at the time he does not think to argue.

And yet - and yet when he looks at her for too long, he grows restless. His hands itch, his head aches, and his fingers brush compulsively over cold metal.

_If only she were not here._

**{breaking}**

He wants to tell Oz these things, like some kind of a confession, as though Oz could absolve him of his sin. As long as Oz will still accept him, he thinks; as long as it's all right with Oz. But he can't, won't. He is terrified of finding the line that Oz won't cross, of finding the point at which Oz can accept him no longer.

And as he looks at the chain which wears a girl's face, as he thinks, _if only you weren't here - if only you disappeared!_ \- he knows that line will be Alice.


End file.
